Regina Spektor

Welcome to the Music-Talk.org Forums!

You are currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means that you're missing out on a lot of awesome features! If you join our community, you'll be able to: post in the forums; use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls; submit articles and reviews to be displayed on the Music-Talk website; post your own lyrics and recordings for critique by other users; and be part of one of the most friendly and helpful communities around. Registration is easy, fast, and 100% free.

Join our community today!

If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Regina Spektor - Far; Rating: 3.5
Topic Started: Jul 23 2009, 07:35 PM (134 Views)
Morgan	Jul 23 2009, 07:35 PM Post #1
Dinkin' flicka. Posts: 1,950 Group: Staff Member #2 Joined: June 28, 2006 Gender: Male Name: Morgan Location: Sarasota, FL Last.fm: rockon1824	The Calculation (3:13) Eet (3:54) Blue Lips (3:34) Folding Chair (3:35) Machine (3:51) Laughing With (3:18) Human of the Year (4:12) Two Birds (3:23) Dance Anthem of the 80's (3:44) Genius Next Door (5:10) Wallet (2:30) One More Time with Feeling (4:03) Man of a Thousand Faces (3:12) Regina Spektor's fifth album, Far, released just over three years to the date after her last effort, Begin to Hope, greets Regina fans just in time to prevent the side effects of Regina withdrawal from becoming too serious. And certainly for most Regina fans, a hit of Far will be more than enough to cause the pangs and tremors to subside. It also serves as a perfect gateway album that will be sure to create some new Regina addicts, as evidenced already by its high chart numbers on large retailers like Amazon and iTunes. Okay, so maybe comparing Far to a shot of heroin doesn't quite give the right impression. This album doesn't quite produce near the same level of euphoria, for one. But it also doesn't make you feel like crap afterward! The effect is somewhere in the middle. There are some outstanding tracks on this record that will undoubtedly become fan favorites, if they haven't already. On the flipside, unfortunately, it also contains some extremely mediocre material. This album starts out on a very good note with the ridiculously catchy pop tune "The Calculation." The first thing that I noticed about this track was the fantastic production quality, a trait that manages to stay consistent throughout the record despite the fact that there are four individual producers credited in the liner notes (not including Regina herself). It is especially evident in the vocals, which ring as clear as a bell. And while the lo-fi sound of 11:11 and Songs may have befit the songs on those albums, the more mature songwriting present on Far definitely called for a step-up in production value. "The Calculation" is also a paradigm of the aforementioned mature songwriting, right down to the fact that Regina somehow manages to rhyme the words "fire" and "burning" in the chorus without skewing the syllables, a complete mindfuck if there ever was one. Later on, "Laughing With" also serves as a good example of Regina's improved songwriting abilities, featuring a very complex melody that nonetheless manages to be catchy. After "The Calculation" the album moves onto "Eet" and "Blue Lips," two more catchy tracks that don't quite have the kick that the first song does but still contain all the goodness Regina fans have come to expect of her songwriting, piano-playing, and singing. "Blue Lips" in particular addresses the lyrical themes that pervade Far, as distinct from her previous releases. As evident from the track's title, the color blue is a major motif, painting everything from the album's cover to the numerous mentions of sky and sea. "Blue Lips," as well as tracks like "Lauging With," "Human of the Year," and "Man of a Thousand Faces," address the topic of religion in a much more direct manner than anything on Regina's prior releases, in tones ranging from sarcastic to whimsical to critical. A spin-off of the blue motif is the ocean-themed "Folding Chair," another infectiously catchy and playful track with bouncy piano and bass parts. Here Regina imitates a dolphin in the second chorus. I think that sums up the awesomeness of this track better than I could do with some flowery description. In now comes "Machine," my personal favorite song on the record. Over a foreboding soundscape Regina describes a 1984-esque "pre-war" future where she is "HOOKED INTO MACHINE." The coolest thing about this track though is that many of its sounds are sampled from David Byrne's Playing the Building installation in New York. Byrne rigged up an old building to an organ so that pressing the keys causes the building's beams to be struck, pipes to be vibrated, etc. and Regina took full advantage of it, adding to the already industrial atmosphere of the song. Following the already-mentioned "Laughing With" are "Human of the Year" and "Two Birds," two more solid tracks, with the former overcoming a slow start to deliver Regina's best vocal performance on Far in its bridge. The next track, "Dance Anthem of the 80's," is hands-down my favorite '80s dance anthem ever written, which I guess isn't saying much, but I assure you in this case, it is a very very good thing. It jumps pretty much all over the place, displaying a mish-mosh of Regina's weirdness, both old and new. An interesting feature of this song that I never would have known if I hadn't read the liner notes is that the majority of the percussion on this track is actually beatboxing, courtesy of Reggie Watts. Unless you listen very closely, this is almost indistinguishable from actual percussion. Alas! but we have already reached the climax. The album takes a serious downturn in the last four songs. "Genius Next Door" has some good instrumentation, but is overall fairly insipid, and I have yet to make sense of the lyrics, nor do I have any desire to do so. "Wallet" and "One More Time with Feeling" can be described simply with the disappointing label "okay." They lack the catchiness and intricacy of the first nine tracks. Finally, the album rounds out with "Man of a Thousand Faces," which just plain bores me. The melody is uninteresting and the piano line is repetitive. What this album boils down to is a solid record that certainly isn't the best thing Regina has ever released, but certainly isn't a black stain on her record either. When the songs are disappointing it is not because they are bad, but because mediocrity is so unbecoming for Regina Spektor. I'm sure that, like all her other records, Far will stay in my CD player for a while and won't be a stranger to it thereafter. On any given day, however, her first three albums prevail. Rating:
	Страшный суд скоро, все как свечи гореть будем.


Morgan	Aug 8 2009, 07:41 PM Post #2
Dinkin' flicka. Posts: 1,950 Group: Staff Member #2 Joined: June 28, 2006 Gender: Male Name: Morgan Location: Sarasota, FL Last.fm: rockon1824	Congratulations, your review has been accepted! It will be added to the website within the next few days and 400 Notes will be added to your account. Thank you for contributing to Music-Talk!
	Страшный суд скоро, все как свечи гореть будем.


1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)


« Previous Topic · Music · Next Topic »